Romancing the Crown: Max & Elena: The Disenchanted Duke

Her days of being shoved into a closet had created not only an underlying fear of the dark, but of tiny, confining places as well. But she’d be damned if she was going to say anything about it to him.

Instead her eyes narrowed as she looked at his face. “You like correcting me all the time? Or am I getting some kind of a free demonstration of the way you ran that charm school of yours?”

“Neither.” He rose to his feet, refusing to rise to her bait. His eyes skimmed over her. Her shirt was clinging to her chest, a damp spot where she’d failed to dry herself off forming just above where he imagined her cleavage to be. “You’re dressed.”

There was only one large bath towel available beside the two hand towels. Had he expected her to come out wearing the towel like a sarong? Just because he liked to flaunt his attributes didn’t mean she did.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t wear hand-me-downs anymore.” She nodded toward the bathroom. “That includes someone else’s towel.”

“Anymore? You come from a large family?”

Damn, it was as if he had some kind of homing device, zeroing in on the one word she’d slipped up on.

“I don’t come from any family at all, if it’s any business of yours, Ryker,” she informed him icily, calling an end to the conversation.

His broad shoulders rose in a blameless half shrug. “Just making friendly conversation.”

The hell he was. She raised her chin. She knew exactly where he was coming from. “Prying is never friendly.”

Well, maybe he was, but any information he really wanted, he could always get from his grandfather and another wild ride on the information highway. He had the urge to drape his arm around her small, ramrod straight shoulders, but he squelched it.

“Look, Rivers, you and I are going to be together for at least a little while, don’t you think we should have a truce?”

Anything to get him to lower his guard again. “Fine with me.”

He glanced over her head at the headboard. There were tacky posts on either side. Not aesthetically pleasing, but it might be strong enough to do the trick—if necessary.

“And in the spirit of that truce, am I going to have to handcuff you to the bed, or can I have your word that you won’t suddenly try to take off with my car in the middle of the night?”

“You have my word.” She had no intention of trying. She intended to succeed.

After his conversation with his nephew, King Marcus replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle. He refused to believe that Lucas was dead, despite all the facts to the contrary. His son had been too full of life, too bright to have been extinguished so suddenly without a trace the way it appeared to all the world that he had.

The plane had gone down somewhere in the Rockies, but someplace, somehow, Lucas was alive. Marcus knew it in his heart. And this man, this vermin who now called himself Kevin Weber, might hold the key to that as well as many other things.

Marcus knew he would rest easier once Weber was brought back to Montebello. And Max was just the man to do it.

Chapter 6

Max liked staying abreast of current events and watched the nightly news whenever he could. But the reception on the small television set within the rundown motel room left a great deal to be desired. Mainly a picture and clear sound. Giving up, he shut the set off and decided to turn in.

He noted that Rivers seemed to be of like mind. She was already in bed. Or rather, on top of it. She looked exhausted and more than a little disgruntled. She was also still wearing the clothes she’d put on again after her shower.

He looked down at her from the foot of the bed. “Aren’t you going to change?”

The mattress beneath Cara felt as if it predated the Second World War. She sincerely doubted it had a comfortable place to offer up. Turning, she laid flat on her back and laced her hands beneath her head. Looking up, she didn’t particularly like the way he was looming over her.

“I like me just the way I am.”

She was playing with words again, he thought. “I meant your clothes.”

Her expression remained unchanged. “I like those just the way they are, too.”

He wondered if she enjoyed being perverse and decided that she must. She was so good at it. “What do you normally sleep in?”

“A bed.”

Games, she was in the mood for games. Crossing to his side of the bed, Max dipped into his dwindling supply of patience and tried again. “What do you have on when you get into bed when you’re home?”

“Generally a very tired expression.”

And then it hit him, she wasn’t playing games, she was being evasive. And he had a feeling he knew why. “You sleep in the raw?”

Cara felt freer that way, but it wasn’t any business of his that she did. She knew she should just turn her back on him and ignore the question, but something goaded her to respond.

“What of it?”

He gave her a careless shrug. “Just a coincidence, that’s all. I sleep in the raw, too.” Sitting down on the bed, he took off his socks and then began unbuttoning his shirt.

An edgy feeling caught hold of her stomach. Cara propped herself up on her elbow. “Well, not tonight you don’t, Ryker. Stop right there,” she ordered him.

He’d already peeled off his shirt and was sitting there, bare-chested. She forced her eyes to his face.

“What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing,” she snapped. “Because you’re not going to do anything.” It was an order, not an observation. “Except to lay down on your side and drop off to sleep—now.”

The dulcet tones were certainly missing. He laughed. “You’re going to make one hell of a mother someday, you know that?”

She took offense at his tone. It was her heart’s longing to have children. And to give them all the love she’d never had, the love she’d been storing up all these years.

“Yeah, I will. And let me worry about that, you just get some shut-eye. Now. Or I’ll leave without you.” The threat slipped out before she could think to stop it. She didn’t ordinarily overplay her hand. She told herself it was because she was tired.

“You can’t. I have the only set of keys.”

Max held them up for her benefit. Then, he made an elaborate show of pushing them down deep into his front pocket. He knew she wouldn’t attempt to go digging there while he was asleep.

She looked at where he’d tucked the keys. Her mouth curved wryly. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “Aren’t you afraid of sustaining permanent injury if you should roll over during the night?”

He laid down on the bed. “I’ll risk it.”

Cara was acutely conscious of the way the mattress had dipped down, acutely conscious of the man laying less than two feet away from her.

“Does that mean you don’t trust me?” she asked flippantly.

His eyes met hers. “No more than you trust me.”

Something tightened within her. She inclined her head. “Fair enough.”